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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26296294">look what's become of me</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertLily/pseuds/DesertLily'>DesertLily</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Found Family Bingo 2020 [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Mechanisms (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bittersweet, Canonical Character Death, Death To The Mechanisms, Found Family, Hurt No Comfort, Light Angst, does this count as angst?, its just kinda sad</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 08:49:06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,534</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26296294</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertLily/pseuds/DesertLily</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The Toy Soldier reflects on the loss of the closest thing it would ever have to a family.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ashes O'Reilly &amp; The Toy Soldier, Drumbot Brian &amp; The Toy Soldier, Ivy Alexandria &amp; The Toy Soldier, Jonny d'Ville &amp; The Toy Soldier, Marius von Raum &amp; The Toy Soldier, Nastya Rasputina &amp; The Toy Soldier, The Toy Soldier &amp; The Mechanisms</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Found Family Bingo 2020 [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1889911</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Found Family Bingo</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>look what's become of me</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For the 'calm' prompt on my Found Family bingo card!!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The Toy Soldier never understood emotions. Not entirely. They were something reserved for living organisms - not sentient pieces of wood. Unfortunately, it fell into that second category. Though, was it really unfortunate? It had never found a reason to complain about its form.  At least, none that truly made sense. A lot of things didn’t make sense to it. But it got by anyways with that permanent smile on its face and all the manners of a British Gentleman! Even if it wasn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>entirely</span>
  </em>
  <span> sure what a British gentleman was. But still, it had been given many roles in life and did its jolly best to fulfill them! </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then came the time when it had the closest thing to true free will. Its time on the Aurora; its time as one of the Mechanisms - even if the others had stated multiple times that the Toy Soldier didn’t quite count. It unnerved them and in all honesty? That caused it to feel the closest possible thing it could to sadness. With a “Jolly good, old chap!”, it eagerly joined in with their many travels and questionable activities. It gave it a sense of belonging that it hadn’t felt in a long time. Jonny. Nastya. Tim. Brian. Ashes. Ivy. Marius. Raphaella. Its friends! The most important people that the Toy Soldier would ever have the pleasure of meeting! The only people who ever treated it as more than a puppet. There were times when the Mechanisms even seemed to mistake the Toy Soldier for being alive. They were wrong, of course. It wasn’t alive. It never had been and it never would be. It was simply...playing pretend. It was playing at being alive and doing a jolly good job of it! It spent millenia with the Mechanisms. It couldn’t say how long - time began to blur together after a while. But it had been...nice. They didn’t make as much of a habit as others to simply order the Toy Soldier around. They allowed it to have at least some semblance of independence and agency. But all good things had their end. The Mechanisms were no different. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nastya was the first to go. Nobody had truly explained what happened to her. Just that she had left with the last remaining part of her true love. An odd expression, certainly. It had always assumed the Aurora was her love and she definitely hadn’t taken the entire ship with her! But then again...the Toy Soldier didn’t feel love in the way most did. Perhaps it simply didn’t understand. But it did miss Nastya. It missed the slight smiles she would offer on occasion and the fact she was the only one of them that even Jonny seemed to give into. But now she was gone; never to be heard from again. The Mechanisms never tried to replace her as the role of engineer became split between the last of them. But they were never quite as good as her. Nastya’s departure created a lonely void that would only continue to grow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jonny was the next to go. Jonny d’ville. The Toy Soldier could proudly say it had never met anyone like him before nor would they ever again. He was...wild; reckless in a way no other life form was capable of being. He had never treated the Toy Soldier with much kindness but it still looked at its memories of him fondly. The first mate (never captain) of the Aurora had a way of always making his presence known - usually via gunfire.  It wasn’t surprised to learn of his death in a fight. Jonny had lived in violence, it only made sense that he was to die by it. But his presence was missed. There was no laughter or mocking comments about throwing the Toy Soldier out of the airlock anymore. The Aurora felt silent without him.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>After Jonny, it was Ashes. They had never been entirely pleasant towards the Toy Soldier but, from what they could understand, it was simply their way of being affectionate. It certainly helped explain their threats of arson at every minor inconvenience. Unlike with Jonny and the others, Ashes had a fire inside of them that burnt harsher and hotter than any other flame ever could. It made sense that they went out in flames. The Toy Soldier didn’t doubt it was how they wanted to go. In an ironic way, Ashes finally lived up to their name as they were left as nothing; mere ashes at the very end of time. But they most likely died happy. In an odd way, the Toy Soldier found that comforting. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was not dense enough to not notice how agitated Raphaella had become. Very few things seemed to satisfy her anymore. Her experiments yielded no responses of note and, no matter how many times it offered to help, nothing got more out of her than the ghost of a smile. It wasn’t surprised when she left. None of them were. Entering a black hole was her final experiment. Just like Ashes, she died as she lived. One final experiment; one final scientific unknown. If Raphaella </span>
  <em>
    <span>did</span>
  </em>
  <span> survive the black hole then she never made herself known again. She was gone. Forever. The Toy Soldier had lost half of its friends. It felt...oddly hollow at that thought. It felt pure loss. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tim had been at his breaking point since the loss of Jonny. It suspected that he had known the end was coming after that. The quiet that came after the loss of their first mate was a reminder to all of them; immortality didn’t mean forever. Each loss after made it more and more certain. Eternity had an end and the Mechanisms were vastly approaching theirs. The Toy Soldier remembered the day Tim left. Mostly as it was the very first time Gunpowder Tim had ever shown it  a semblance of true affection. He had hugged it and said a real goodbye. When the tale came of a large, star-destroying gunship but commandeered before crashing into a space station, it did not need to delve into looking into </span>
  <em>
    <span>who</span>
  </em>
  <span> the pilot had been. None of them doubted for a second that it was Tim. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shortly after Raphaella’s death, Ivy retired. She left them for the closest thing she could get to peace. The Toy Soldier had visited her a few times. The library she had set up was...magnificent. It was not large by any means but it was so full of knowledge. It saw the calm it brought Ivy. In that library, she seemed the most content she had been in millenia. She had found where she belonged. She had also found the place where she had died. Rather than save herself from a fire caused by a raging war, she had saved her life’s work; her book collection. Not that anyone would ever really associate her name with them. Ivy would become a nameless librarian in the tales of history. But the Toy Soldier would not forget her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Marius had always seemed tired to the Toy Soldier. Perhaps it was a side effect of having to deal with the...chaos of the Aurora’s crew. He was the ship’s doctor, after all! It was his job to look after them all. Though, Jonny always insisted he wasn’t a real doctor. That always confused the Toy Soldier. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Why would he lie about such an accomplishment?</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He was still the closest thing they had to a real medical professional on board. Doctor Carmilla was...gone and Raphaella seemed too chaotic at times to truly count.  He wasn’t entirely as cold as the others were to the Toy Soldier. It appreciated that. It was just glad that his death was as quick as it was brutal. Being devoured by octokittens in just under twelve seconds. It sound painful - though, the Toy Soldier didn’t really understand pain. It did miss Marius though. It missed everyone, really. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then only Drumbot Brian remained. Its final friend. The last living member of the Aurora’s crew. Together, they were the last two Mechanisms. The two that were least human. Brian was made almost entirely of metal and the Toy Soldier had never had the pleasure of being anything more than wood. They were both bound to end eventually. All robots broke at some point. It said nothing as it watched Brian cast himself into the void. It had nothing left to say. It never said anything again. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Toy Soldier was oddly calm as it simply...stopped existing. It had no one to leave behind or be concerned for anymore. It had no need to move or to think. Its friends - its </span>
  <em>
    <span>family</span>
  </em>
  <span> - were long gone. The final Mechanism found the closest thing it could to peace. It had no idea what would come next. Perhaps it would be reunited with its friends once more. Perhaps there would just be...nothing instead. All it knew was that it did not fear ‘death’ - if it could even be called that. There was only calm as it stopped being. The wooden soldier fell to the ground; lifeless and emotionless. A broken toy with nobody left to play with it. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Comments and kudos are always appreciated! Or hmu @ desert-lily on tumblr or my TMA/Mechs blog lonelygears</p></blockquote></div></div>
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